Help

How to search for zines

Basic search

You can search the Zine Library catalogue by entering a word or words in the Search box on the top right of every page and clicking Search or Enter. This will search for the word(s) as it appears anywhere in a zine record. This will also search other content on the website, so you may get results from an announcement or something non-zine-related.

When you open a zine record, you will find information about the zine. If the zine has been fully catalogued you will see the title, author, year, location, physical description, language, number of pages, box category, subjects, and summary (although some things may be missing if not included on the zine), as well as whether the zine is checked out or in the library and how many copies of the zine the library has. If the zine is not fully catalogued, you will only see the title, box category, number of copies, and whether the zine is checked in or out.

To locate the zine in the library, look at the Box Categoryand find that box in the library. The large sections, such as Personal Zines and Comics, are separated into boxes organized alphabetically by title. The zines are not organized in each box. Looking at the Physical Description field in the catalogue record will help you locate the zine in its box because it will tell you the size of the zine and if it has a coloured cover or other unusual physical characteristics.

Search for a title, author, subject, etc.

You can search for a word or words in a specific field, such as Title, Author, or Subject, by going to the Zine Cataloguepage and entering a word(s) in one of these fields and clicking Submit. Searching in a specific field is especially useful if the word you're searching for appears in a lot of records.

Special searches

In the Zine Catalogue menu, you can find some special searches, such as Local Zines and New Zines. Local Zines lists all zines made in Halifax and New Zines lists all the zines in the catalogue, in the order of most recently catalogued.

Browse library

Instead of searching, you can also browse lists of zines, box categories, and subject terms.

If you go to Browse Boxes, you can see a list of broad zine categories and a description of each category. If you click View Zines beside each box category, you can see a list of zines in that category.

If you go to Browse Subjects, you can see a list of subjects in the catalogue. If you click View Zines beside each subject, you can see a list of zines on that subject.